Roads needed, no matter the fuel: NZTA head

New Zealand's roading network will continue to play an
essential part in transportation, no matter what lies in
store for the world's oil supply, the head of the New Zealand
Transport Agency says.

NZTA chief executive Geoff Dangerfield was in Dunedin this
week, with members of the agency's board and management team,
meeting stakeholders including local government
representatives, transport users, cartage and trucking firms,
public transport and walking and cycling interests, as well
as Port Otago representatives.

Mr Dangerfield was ''touching base'' as the financial year
ended, and the NZTA began to consider its next three-year
land transport programme.

Asked about its longer-term vision for the country's network,
he said the agency was ''building systems that are going to
last 50 to 100 years''.

The organisation was concerned about what transport systems
would look like at that time, when issues such as peak oil
become more apparent.

But New Zealand would need transport systems ''regardless of
what particular type of engines you've got in vehicles'', Mr
Dangerfield said.

''In a 50-year time frame, we may well see the uptake of a
whole lot of different sorts of technologies that drive
vehicles.

''We've seen an uptake in different parts of the world, and
slowly an uptake in New Zealand, of electric technologies,''
he said.